DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Applicants' communication filed on January 12, 2026. Claims 1-2, 6 and 15 are amended, and presents arguments, is hereby acknowledged. Claims 1-12 and 15-22 are currently pending and have been examined.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on January 12, 2026 have been fully considered.
Regarding limitations of Claims of the instant case in view of the amended Claims and upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection, necessitated by the amendments is made in view of different interpretation of the previously applied references and new prior art as presented in this Office action. Therefore, Applicant’s arguments are moot. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103, which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-12 and 15-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180321972 A1 (Lin), in view of US 20130239114 A1 (Dinker) and in further view of US 20200245252 A1 (Zhao) and US 20150351033 A1 (Stanley-Marbell).
Regarding Claims 1, 12 and 22:
A method, comprising: running a first process on a processor of an electronic device, wherein a first application corresponding to the first process runs in a background of the electronic device; and detecting the first process as a high load process responsive to a processor utilization rate of the first process exceeding a preset load threshold and a running duration of the first process being not less than a preset duration threshold; responsive to detecting the first process as the high load process, reducing a processor utilization rate of the first process: when running of the first application is not perceivable by a user (Lin: Figs. 1-3, task management methods that implemented in an electronic system/device; the system monitors all foreground and background tasks/applications/processes and ensures that sum of all background process(es) (first process) run time, i.e., running duration of the 1st process, is less than a threshold T, which implies that the system throttles background processes, which is equivalent to reduction of utilization of the processor(s) executing both foreground and background processes. It is further noted that background processes are generally not being perceivable by a user).
Lin does not teach explicitly on reducing utilization rate based on a load threshold. However, Dinker teaches (Dinker: Fig. 2 and par. 18-30, monitoring the utilization of a shared resource, i.e., processor load, and dynamically adjust resource allocation by background processes for the next interval vs, a preset threshold value. Zhao: Figs. 3, 7, 10, also illustrate that background applications and/or abnormal disturbance can cause device to draw extra power, e.g., par. 33-37, which is equivalent to overheat the device; the system starts to restrict applications, e.g., see par. 41-42; par. 5, “The target application program includes at least one or more of the following application programs: a background application program whose use frequency is lower than a preset frequency threshold, a background application program whose power consumption is greater than a preset power consumption threshold, and a background application program with abnormal power consumption”; par. 115, average power consumption may be used for comparison. Average power consumption herein is an amount of power consumed by an application program per unit of time after the application program enters the background, and such power consumption may be obtained by dividing a total amount of power consumed by the application program after the application program enters the background by running duration of the application program in the background).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Lin with reducing utilization rate based on a load threshold as further taught by Dinker and Zhao. The advantage of doing so is to prevent background processes to saturate shared resource in a computer system (Dinker: Background).
Lin does not teach explicitly on various abnormal conditions for reducing processor utilizations. However, Stanley-Marbell teaches (Stanley-Marbell: par. 162-163, processor temperature; par. 141-144, battery discharge; par. 172, application freezing/overload).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Lin with various abnormal conditions for reducing processor utilizations as further taught by Stanley-Marbell. The advantage of doing so is to provide a mechanism to managing system resources based on system events (Stanley-Marbell: Background).
Regarding to Claims 2 and 15, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method claim 1, wherein before reducing the processor utilization rate of the first process, the method further comprises: determining that the electronic device satisfies a preset abnormality condition, wherein the abnormality condition comprises at least one of the following: a processor temperature of the electronic device is greater than a preset temperature threshold; a value by which a state of charge of a battery of the electronic device decreases within a preset duration is greater than a preset state of charge threshold; and a foreground application running on the electronic device freezes; and wherein responsive to detecting the electronic device satisfies the preset abnormality condition, reducing the processor utilization rate of the first process (Zhao: par. 35, abnormal power consumption of background application, i.e., higher temp; it is also noted that a full or higher utilization of processor normally causes the system/device/application(s) to slow down or freezing; Stanley-Marbell: par. 162-163, due to processor temperature; par. 141-144, due to battery discharge; par. 172, due to application freezing/overload).
Regarding to Claims 3 and 16, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein reducing the processor utilization rate of the first process comprises controlling the first process to sleep periodically, wherein when the first process sleeps, the first process does not use processor resources (Lin: e.g., Figs. 2 and 4).
Regarding to Claims 4 and 17, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 3, wherein each sleep period comprises a running time and a sleep time of the first process, and within the running time of the first process, the first process uses the processor resources based on scheduling of the processor (Lin: Figs. 2 and 4).
Regarding to Claims 5 and 18, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 4, wherein the sleep time of the first process in each sleep period is equal to a preset value (Lin: e.g., in Fig.4, sleep time is T in any given time period).
Regarding to Claims 6 and 19, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 3, further comprising determining a sleep time within a current sleep period based on a current load of the processor and a preset target load (Lin: e.g., in Fig. 4, in the 2nd and 3rd time period, sleep time is T because running duration is at the threshold T, but in the period 4, there is no sleep period as background tasks are below the threshold duration T).
Regarding to Claims 7 and 20, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein reducing the processor utilization rate of the first process comprises decreasing a scheduling priority of the first process, wherein the scheduling priority indicates an order in which the processor allocates processor resources to the process (Lin: e.g., par. 14-17, and 31-32 among others).
Regarding to Claims 8 and 21, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 7, wherein decreasing the scheduling priority of the first process comprises increasing a value of the scheduling priority of the first process (Lin: e.g., par. 14-17, and 31-32 among others, where methods of setting priority for each process is implementation depended).
Regarding Claim 9, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein reducing the processor utilization rate of the first process comprises reducing a processor utilization rate threshold of the first process (Dinker: Figs. 1A-B and 3).
Regarding Claim 10, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein when the running of the first application is not perceivable by the user the first application does not input or output audio, and the first application does not receive or transmit data through mobile communication or wireless communication (Dinker: e.g., par. 11, backup copy, antivirus program among others).
Regarding Claim 11, Lin as modified further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein when the first application runs in the background of the electronic device comprises the first application does not have a human-computer interaction interface, or a human-computer interaction interface of the first application stops being displayed on a screen of the electronic device (Dinker: e.g., par. 11, backup copy, antivirus program among others).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHITONG CHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1936. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30am - 5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yuwen Pan can be reached on 571-272-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ZHITONG CHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649
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